Football team to host bone marrow registry drive

The Rowan University football team will hold its annual donor registry drive as part of the “Get In The Game (GITG). Save a Life. Be The Match” Registry Drive on Wednesday, April 20, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the University’s Chamberlain Student Center (second floor).

This marks the 14th year that the Profs have partnered with the Andy Talley Bone Marrow Foundation and Be The Match, which aims to add potential donors to the Be the Match Registry. Rowan is one of nearly 200 college and university football teams helping to save lives through the program, Get In The Game.

Since joining the program, the Profs’ football team has registered 3,234 individuals with 16 people becoming donors. The Talley Foundation originated in 2008 and since then in conjunction with GITG, has been responsible for registering 123,000 potential donors nationwide which have resulted in 840 transplants. 

On April 20, the Rowan football team will help register participants and distribute cheek swab kits. Participants will then be added to the registry and contacted by the National Marrow Donor Program if they are a match.

Be The Match, operated by the National Marrow Donor Program, offers a potential cure through blood stem cell and marrow transplants for the thousands of people diagnosed every year with blood cancers like leukemia and lymphoma and life-threatening blood diseases like sickle cell and aplastic anemia.

“We think our involvement with the Andy Talley Bone Marrow Foundation is extremely important, and it helps connect the entire Rowan community,” said head football coach Jay Accorsi. “Every day there are people who look to the registry, hoping to find a match to save their life. This is a great cause and if we can enroll many people, someone will have a better chance of finding a match.”

For more information:  Andy Talley Bone Marrow Foundation

Be the Match – Get in the Game